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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Helen O" data-source="post: 1585193" data-attributes="member: 65044">On the subject of s/hawks and gardens, last week I was inside the house looking through an open window, when suddenly an exocet missile (or should that be the AIM 26 Falcon missile!) flew past the window with a 'whoosh' with what seemed like inches to spare between the missile and the open window.  At the time there were around 30 birds at or near the feeders, most of them recently fledged goldfinches and greenfinches.  The exocet missile (i.e. the male sparrowhawk), performed what looked like a 180° turnaround in mid flight to persue the bird(s) that had scattered into the trees behind him on his approach.A truly fantastic sight to witness and listen to -  the alarm calls, then the deadly silence that follows.  After a while, all returns to 'normality' with the s/hawk long gone - more often than not without a catch.Unfortunatley, the only down side, is that being in an area where red kites are a common sight, I receive a lot of reports of red kites 'attacking my *insert fluffy bird name here* in the bushes.  Kites, it seems, are blamed for rather a lot of predating in the garden bushes, which usually turns out to be the perfectly normal modus operandi of their local s/hawk hunting for a bite to eat!</blockquote>